Its apparent...

[tbonezone]

JB's zone weakness is that it's all we play. there's no other exit .and if the fire happens to be in front of that door we're doomed.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Syracuse has one of the best defensive teams year after year because of the zone defense. If your personal preference is man-to-man then good for you. But that doesn't make SU's zone defense inferior just because of your opinion about it.

The only problem I have with the zone is it likely makes recruiting blue chips more difficult because it's so rarely played at the NBA level. But from an on-court production/efficiency standpoint the results speak for themselves.

1) I didn't say or suggest that either is inferior to the other.
2) You cannot conclude that 'good defense play' wouldn't also be achieved by the same team playing man, if it were coached competently. We used to consistently have better high schoolers on the floor than the other team. We should have won games.
3) '"best defensive team's year after year" sounds like an assertion based on a stat, and you can make stats say anything. Points against? The result of a slow pace. 3pt percentage? How does the other team compensate by scoring at will in the paint?

We have absolutely had some teams where the zone was a weapon. With devastating results in a few games. But we have been defended by bad teams with no real talent, playing tight man to man and no one mentions that that defense was better than ours. There have been notable wins with the zone, and we remember those effects. Yet when we lose because of the zone, no one attributes the loss to it—some rationalizations and excuses are made. Our zone can be good, but in how many years is it really a plus? No way to know. As there's no way to know which possibly better players we might have signed if we didn't play a 'non-NBA defense.' Can't it even be a consideration that if we were a m2m or mixed D team that we would have one more FF or championship? Just because something is tied to your identity doesn't mean there couldn't have been a better result a different way.

 

[FrancoPizza]

The only thing switching to M2M would prove is that these guys are terrible defenders regardless of what defense we're in.

stop drinking the JB kook aid. If izzo coached these guys they would be pretty good m2m defenders. But my statement is as speculative as yours because we'll never have the opportunity to see our theories tested.

 

[cuseinseattle]

The jimmy zone no longer works in today's game. These kids come up in AAU shooting 25 footers or driving and dunking. The mid range game in college hoops is gone. Kids are simply shooting over our merry go round of rotation under the 3 point line. Time to play some man. Secondly, we aren't recruiting well enough. Maybe kids dont want to stand on D with their hands up or the dome has lost its luster , but jimmy isn't coming close to getting big talent. Watching the UCLA/ZONA game today was eye opening. Huge, long athletes at guard and athletic 7 footers. Its a different game.

When I saw the title its apparent I thought it would be something along the lines of its apparent John calipari is the greatest coach ever. It's good to have you back. We missed you while we were beating Pitt and Miami. I thought we would see you after two road games against top 25 teams.

 

[orangedave]

stop drinking the JB kook aid. If izzo coached these guys they would be pretty good m2m defenders. But my statement is as speculative as yours because we'll never have the opportunity to see our theories tested.

And yet, Izzo, who recruits very well and coaches very well remains 1-4 or something close to that against Boeheim's zone.

 

[orangecuse]

stop drinking the JB kook aid. If izzo coached these guys they would be pretty good m2m defenders. But my statement is as speculative as yours because we'll never have the opportunity to see our theories tested.

Precisely! I speculated in a different thread recently that there must be something in the water in Syracuse that keeps our guys from being able to play any man to man...not a wink, never mind the fact that they've been playing it at relatively high competitive levels their entire lives. Somehow, those same guys we recruited (for JB's system) whom we recently missed out on and went to other schools (Bryant and Heurter just to name a couple) miraculously are able to play it, and with success, at their respective university's. Go figure.

 

[Ish88888]

When I saw the title its apparent I thought it would be something along the lines of its apparent John calipari is the greatest coach ever. It's good to have you back. We missed you while we were beating Pitt and Miami. I thought we would see you after two road games against top 25 teams.

Actually, funny you say that. I was thinking about just how good cal's coaching job was yesterday against south carolina, a team that slows pace and makes you play half court. The Kentucky half court offense was excellent. Yup, the one year divas, cutting, screening, playing unselfish. Something we don't see in our half court.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

And yet, Izzo, who recruits very well and coaches very well remains 1-4 or something close to that against Boeheim's zone.

Izzo can heal DC's knees, make Gillon a few inches taller, make Thompson a few seasons more experienced, and motivate White to move a little faster.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Imo the biggest reason we went to FF is because we only gave up about 56 pts/game in those 4 games. Just like 2013 it was mostly defense...zone defense

No question. Our offense was mostly subpar. The tournament setting give a team like us the surprise element and masks the poor offense. Mali went hero ball and saved us as well as Gonzaga and Virginia crapping the beds. That last year's Gonzaga and UVA teams would beat last year's SU team 7-8x/10 at minimum, imo. Our offense really is unwatchable without some dynamic NBA talent.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Actually, funny you say that. I was thinking about just how good cal's coaching job was yesterday against south carolina, a team that slows pace and makes you play half court. The Kentucky half court offense was excellent. Yup, the one year divas, cutting, screening, playing unselfish. Something we don't see in our half court.

But Cal can't coach! :crazy:

 

[longtimefan]

No question. Our offense was mostly subpar. The tournament setting give a team like us the surprise element and masks the poor offense. Mali went hero ball and saved us as well as Gonzaga and Virginia crapping the beds.
That last year's Gonzaga and UVA teams would beat last year's SU team 7-8x/10 at minimum, imo. Our offense really is unwatchable without some dynamic NBA talent.

UVa yes, Gonzaga definitely no.

 

[FrancoPizza]

And yet, Izzo, who recruits very well and coaches very well remains 1-4 or something close to that against Boeheim's zone.

He won the only matchup that mattered... but this is just deflecting the point that JB can't or won't coach these guys in m2m. It's not that the players are defective which, amazingly, he wants you to believe. And even more amazing is that some still buy that story.

 

[SoBeCuse]

UVa yes, Gonzaga definitely no.

What makes you say that besides pride or the names on the front of the jerseys? That game was more a struggle than UVA, imo. We had NO answer for Sabonis and Wiltjer. Me thinks if they would be more sure handed with the ball if they were to play each other again, cut out the bad turnovers, and run their normal offense then they roll us consistently. They crapped the bed and we got to the FT line. I think we had like 8 assists all game to their 19.

 

[iommi]

What makes you say that besides pride or the names on the front of the jerseys? That game was more a struggle than UVA, imo. We had NO answer for Sabonis and Wiltjer. Me thinks they would be more sure handed with the ball if they were to play each other again. They crapped the bed and we got to the FT line. I think we had like 8 assists all game to their 19.

I don't think they'd beat us 8 or 9 out of 10. It would be a competitive series. The had a tremendous frontcourt but their guard play wasn't stellar.

 

[SoBeCuse]

I don't think they'd beat us 8 or 9 out of 10. It would be a competitive series. The had a tremendous frontcourt but their guard play wasn't stellar.

Oh I can see them being competitve games for sure but they were a better team, imo. They DID crap the bed when we pressed in dire straits mode. I still say 7-8/10 they would win in all pretty close games.

 

[iommi]

Oh I can see them being competitve games for sure but they were a better team, imo. I still say 7-8/10 they would win in all pretty close games.

Hard to assume that all the games would be close but they would win that many, especially if we can agree their backcourt wasn't that great. 7/10 is very possible for them but I could see us winning 4 or 5. We will agree to disagree.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Hard to assume that all the games would be close but they would win that many, especially if we can agree their backcourt wasn't that great. 7/10 is very possible for them but I could see us winning 4 or 5. We will agree to disagree.

Yeah, hard to say. With our interior woes it would just boil down to having to help so much on Sabonis leaving too many shooters wide open. I could see SU winning 4 or 5 also.

 

[AZOrange]

But Cal can't coach! :crazy:

The "cal can't coach" stuff is easily the dumbest thing this board spews. Do you know how hard it is to get virtually all new players to play with each other? We can't do it this year and he does it every year with like 7 guys!

 

[iommi]

The "cal can't coach" stuff is easily the dumbest thing this board spews. Do you know how hard it is to get virtually all new players to play with each other? We can't do it this year and he does it every year with like 7 guys!

Agree for sure. The one thing you have to acknowledge is he's not just getting "7 guys." He is getting 7 studs, usually including 3-4 of the top 15th ranked players at least (and usually 2-3 of the top 5). You can't just roll the ball out and play, but that kind of talent makes blending them a little easier. His staff has had some turnover too but the machine keeps churning.

Cal is a great motivator and teaches his system well but I don't think he's an elite NCAA tournament coach. Maybe having mostly freshmen has hindered him in the tourney. It doesn't impact things in the SEC tourney because the conference sucks almost every year.

 

[orangenirvana]

1) I didn't say or suggest that either is inferior to the other.
2) You cannot conclude that 'good defense play' wouldn't also be achieved by the same team playing man, if it were coached competently. We used to consistently have better high schoolers on the floor than the other team. We should have won games.

Actually one could absolutely argue that the same teams (players) over the years would not have performed as well playing man as playing Boeheim's zone. Even if coached by someone like Izzo.

3) '"best defensive team's year after year" sounds like an assertion based on a stat, and you can make stats say anything. Points against? The result of a slow pace. 3pt percentage? How does the other team compensate by scoring at will in the paint?

We have absolutely had some teams where the zone was a weapon. With devastating results in a few games. But we have been defended by bad teams with no real talent, playing tight man to man and no one mentions that that defense was better than ours. There have been notable wins with the zone, and we remember those effects. Yet when we lose because of the zone, no one attributes the loss to it—some rationalizations and excuses are made. Our zone can be good, but in how many years is it really a plus? No way to know. As there's no way to know which possibly better players we might have signed if we didn't play a 'non-NBA defense.' Can't it even be a consideration that if we were a m2m or mixed D team that we would have one more FF or championship? Just because something is tied to your identity doesn't mean there couldn't have been a better result a different way.

Defensive Efficiency

Syracuse started playing zone exclusively in the 2009-10 season.

2009-10: #1 in Big East, #31 overall out of 347 teams.
2010-11: #3 in Big East, #31 overall
2011-12: #3 in Big East, #24 overall
2012-13: #2 in Big East, #6 overall
2013-14: #3 in ACC, #31 overall
2014-15: #3 in ACC, #31 overall
2015-16: #3 in ACC, #63 overall
2016-17: #10 in ACC, #85 overall

One of the most consistently good defensive teams in the nation.

 

[Cusefannotindc]

stop drinking the JB kook aid. If izzo coached these guys they would be pretty good m2m defenders. But my statement is as speculative as yours because we'll never have the opportunity to see our theories tested.

I dunno, check out the recent KenPom defensive stats, people have obviously figured out Izzo m2m defense

2012 - 2nd
2013 - 6th
2014 - 21st
2015 - 30th
2016 - 28th
2017 - 36th

Is this Izzo's last year?!

 

[SoBeCuse]

I dunno, check out the recent KenPom defensive stats, people have obviously figured out Izzo m2m defense

2012 - 2nd
2013 - 6th
2014 - 21st
2015 - 30th
2016 - 28th
2017 - 36th

Is this Izzo's last year?!

Those numbers are far from bad though. I imagine MSU's KenPom offensive numbers are good.

 

[Coach Orange]

Please understand that there are no facts to back up your statement. And I wish we played more like the Ville than the way we play now. But the zone works just fine today if you have the right players. The last 7 years have showed that.

Let me start by wishing dasher a happy birthday!

That said, with all due respect, what claim did I make that has no facts? That other teams play zone? Watching college basketball reveals that this is a fact. Many teams employ some form of zone. Baylor, Louisville, Duke, Georgetown, Pitt, Nova, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio State, Oregon, St. John's, and many others all utilize zone defenses. Even Kansas uses zone defense to mix it up. Most of these teams don't play zone exclusively, but they do use them in their defensive arsenals.

Are these zones our exact 2-3 zone? No, but that doesn't mean that teams don't see and have experience playing against zones given that so many teams are using them at this point. Hence, our zone isn't a novelty anymore.

In fact, there are several "facts" that point to a need to evaluate the myths connected to the exclusive use of the zone in light of recent successes and failures.

Here is another fact:

We are 87th in effective fg percentage defense this year (which isn't over yet, to be fair). We were 59th last year. 66th in 2014-2015. 109th in 2013-2014. 5th in 2012-2013. 15th in 2011-2012. 24th in 2010-2011.

Effective fg% is a great stat to look at in terms of how effective a defense is because it accounts for all field goal attempts and their relative values. However, it isn't a perfect measure of a defense's effect on games because it doesn't account for creating turnovers, nor does it account for defensive fouls. Still, I reference it here because of the myth that our defensive three-point percentage somehow provides rationale for playing zone exclusively. Three-pointers are only part of an offense; two-pointers still count, too. (If I'm not mistaken, SWC75 has been promoting this point on this board for years.) Therefore, it makes more sense to look at a measure that accounts for both and weighs them appropriately when assessing a defense's effectiveness.

According to these rankings, over the last seven seasons we had three top-25 years (the last was four years ago, which was the best one) and a series of below-top-58 defenses. Based on these numbers, I'm not sure the evidence supports the claim that the zone provides elite defenses year-to-year, which some posters claim.

It also doesn't really demonstrate the zone's effectiveness when we have the "right players." After all, the last few years saw Jerami Grant, Tyler Ennis, Rakeem Christmas, Chris McCollough (injury is obviously a factor here), Michael Gbinije, and Malachi Richardson playing our zone (many of them at the same time) and then make the NBA in some fashion or another. Don't forget that Trevor Cooney is in the D-league. With so many talented players, we should question how many more "right players" a team needs before the zone is top-50.

One could argue that it takes "the right players" playing it, and playing it together, for several years before it evolves into a fully functioning machine. More on that below.

Before we get to that, let's add Opponent Turnovers Per Possession to account for turnovers:

We are 116th so far this season. 54th last year. 56th in 2014-2015. 15th in 2013-2014 (which may help explain, in part, the hot start that season and why the team cooled off late). 25th in 2012-2013. 16th in 2011-2012. 128th in 2010-2011 (this is a strange outlier given the effective fg%).

Again, three top-25 squads, and the other four are below 53. Even if we throw out 2010-2011 as an outlier, we'd have three in each group.

The best we can really say is the zone seems to work remarkably well (top 50 seems more than fair as a criteria for that) as a season-long defense about half the time over the last seven years, and that the last three years (including this one) just haven't been great defensively.

Back to the "players" answer. Perhaps the conclusion to be drawn on causation has to be more nuanced than simply "right players." Roster is part of the issue, especially in connection with early departures and the sanctions. However, many teams lose players early. It's part of the game. The sanctions have no doubt thinned the bench, but what about the players that we do have? Why the defensive dip in rankings (and wins), even when several players were on the roster prior to the sanctions really affecting recruiting? Why did it take Rak four years to "get it," and Roberson still doesn't seem to really grasp it? We can blame lazy players, but it's possible that the way the skills and concepts are taught isn't working, either. Teachers get what they emphasize.

Perhaps other factors are important to consider when explaining our recent difficulties, such as the move to the ACC, opposing teams more regularly playing against zones today than a decade ago, more teams seemingly possessing multiple players capable of shooting 35%-plus from three, and the consistent lack of fundamental skill execution (on both ends of the floor) year-to-year by new faces.

Additionally, some people argue that the zone can only be played effectively by rosters constructed with several players that are here for 3-4 years. The theory here is that players master the reads, slides, traps, etc. over that time, so they should be fully ready by senior year. Therefore, freshman and 5th-year grad transfers will struggle with the zone. Perhaps, but perhaps we then need to rethink what defense we teach and practice almost exclusively given the current climate of one-and-dones and early departures in general. Either that, or we have to be resigned to not recruiting top-rated recruits in hopes that all of our players stay.

If the argument is that we can't be an effective zone without a shot-blocking rim protector, perhaps a more flexible philosophy is needed for better consistency given the limited supply of said players.

Let's not forget that we are now eight seasons into the "exclusively zone" philosophy (with the occasional press sprinkled in, mostly in desperation moments). Early on, we saw a lot of wins. Since then, though, we've endured a lot of losing (more than Coach B historically has seen), and with it conversations about recruiting misses and player inadequacies. I'm not sure direct causation can be proven given the sanctions and early departures, but correlation exists. Because of this, these results and roster debates can't just be divorced from the fact that our staff has chosen to play one style of defense that they now have to recruit for every cycle, whether or not that's explicitly stated. If these players underperform, the coaches that recruited them precisely for the system aren't exempt of some blame. Players and coaches should be accountable.

Ultimately, it's clear a team needs players with developed skills to be successful. However, to leave the entire success of the program's defense to whether or not recruits fit a rather narrow physical description and fundamental skill profile with no possibility for using their skills in ways that may fit other schemes better seems a little myopic and flawed as a strategy. The constant roster turnover only exposes this strategy's flaws. Because no system is 100% successful at developing all players equally fast or to full potential, flexibility is a desirable trait.

One last point about the myth that last year's results show that the zone is a magic elixir in a tourney: again, we were losing by a large enough margin to both Gonzaga and Virginia with under seven minutes to play that Coach Boeheim employed the press. This tactic is usually used as a last gasp by Coach B. These teams failed to remain poised in the face of the press, and that changed the games and helped secure the victories. We were losing while playing zone exclusively. We closed the deficit and won when we adjusted away from this tactic.

Does this mean the zone played no part in these victories? No. It allowed lower-scoring games largely because of the tempo it forced on the games, which probably helped our comebacks. Nonetheless, the results suggest that remaining in the zone would likely have led to a losses, though there is no definitive way to prove that since we didn't remain in the zone. That said, it's logical to assume that, given his devotion to the zone, Coach B probably wouldn't employ the press if he believed we could win these games by simply continuing to play nothing but our half-court zone. He deserves credit for his decisions, whatever motivated them, to put the press on when he did. His adjustments away from only playing zone led to wins.

The end result, though, is that the rationale for exclusively playing zone can't be that last season's Final Four was built from the elixir it was in the NCAA Tournament, because it wasn't. At the very least, there is enough reasonable doubt to diminish the soundness of such a claim.

I'll reiterate--I'm not anti-zone. I have coached the zone and know firsthand that it can be an effective weapon. However, it is entirely reasonable to think that coaches are more regularly incorporating offensive designs to defeat zones, and that players are more comfortable playing against them, because zone defenses are more frequently encountered in games today. This truth does not have to be mutually exclusive from the truth that zones can still work, just like man-to-man defenses can still work even though teams encounter them regularly.

I'll also say I greatly admire Coach Boeheim's coaching and accomplishments. His career may still be under-appreciated. Nevertheless, 40 years of past success does not exclude the possibility of current problems, which can include both roster issues and scheme choices and how they affect results, nor does it guarantee future success. I would hope Coach Boeheim, with all of his knowledge and experience, would be the first to admit this and reflect accordingly on the program's philosophy and techniques to improve them.

Likewise, myths and legends about a coach and his zone shouldn't be allowed to remove the necessity for authentic assessment and critical inquiry when evaluating the state of the program in any given moment.

 

[realorange]

stop drinking the JB kook aid. If izzo coached these guys they would be pretty good m2m defenders. But my statement is as speculative as yours because we'll never have the opportunity to see our theories tested.

We couldn't play M2M this year if we wanted. With no bench our big men would be in trouble by the half. Coleman and TT?? :crazy:

 

[longtimefan]

Yeah, hard to say. With our interior woes it would just boil down to having to help so much on Sabonis leaving too many shooters wide open. I could see SU winning 4 or 5 also.

I detect a change of opinion.